Texans continue to dominate Top Chef Texas

The good news is that we got lots of rah-rahs for our Texas chefs and finally said goodbye to someone who we were clearly ready to say goodbye to, but other than that, this episode was a bit lazy/boring, no?

Let’s get on with it so we can move on to Christmas and our own culinary adventures.

Quickfire challenge: Follow challenge instructions from Twitter fans

Peace out, Dallas! The chefs are in Austin, and everyone knows what Austin is known for… Twitter! Yes, apparently Twitter was invented at SXSW or something, so instead of coming up with their own challenge, Padma and Tom are turning to their followers to suggest what antics they should send the chefs though.

This is/was real in that I remember Top Chef tweeting about it a couple of months ago. The Twitterverse demands the chefs: 1. Cook a dish with bacon (of course), 2. Make a hash, as in hashtag, 3. Swap an ingredient with another chef. And so they do it. It’s nothing crazy.

Both Houston natives Sarah Grueneberg and Paul Qui are the faves, and Paul ends up winning for something especially bacon-y, like bacon two ways with chorizo and blackberries and mushrooms.

Yay Paul!

Elimination challenge: Create a dish honoring who taught you to cook

They chefs are just chillaxing at the Driskill Hotel when none other than Miss Patti LaBelle takes to the stage. I’m not sure how often this soul sister is in Texas, other than her altercation at Bush Airport, but whatever, she was there then, singing “Lady Marmalade” and making me speculate that a marmalade/jam/jelly challenge was ahead.

Sadly for us jam-lovers, Patti Labelle isn’t just a singer, she’s also a cookbook author, heath food advocate and spokeswoman for diabeeetus, so they went with another food connection.

The chefs had to cook a dish inspired by the person who taught them how to cook. It was mostly moms and grandparents, but Ty-Lor had a (possibly made-up) story about a Japanese nanny that cooked him classy tempura chicken fingers as a yougin. Other than that, it was pretty expectable.

Sarah won the challenge by combining the inspiration from her Houston grandparents. Her grandmother made stuffed cabbage, and her granddad makes sausage, so she did cabbage with stuffed sausage.

World's best granddaughter

The judges found it delicious, but also light.

Heather goes home. I don’t even know if it’s because of her short-rib beef stroganoff wasn’t tender enough or because after the past two weeks, they just know nobody wants to watch her anymore. Either way, sadly, it’s time to go… over a heartfelt recipe you made to honor your mother. Womp womp.

7 Responses

IT WAS ABOUT TIME!!!! Heather was a BULLY…short & simple…she bullied Beverly so many times & I was THRILLED to see her go…I was also ecstatic when the judges were telling Heather how WONDERFUL Beverly’s dish was…I bet they had to delete some scenes!!! I really hope Nyesha beats her so she doesn’t come back!!! GO NYESHA!!!!

Actually, Heather went home on account of that horrid beef. Not only did Emeril Legasse refer to it as “bad hotel food”, but Ms. LaBelle identified the meat as Bigfoot (silly her: Sasquatch is a delicacy in the Northwest, and also the Himalayas. Down in these parts, we prefer chupacabra.)

However, the moment when Tom Colicchio mentioned to her about Bev using the pressure cooker, and not being in the room – followed by the fact that Bev was called into the *winning* JT – Priceless.

I will say that I am more than a little disappointed in the season so far. Southfork Ranch? Twitter? Chili cook-off? I think they did their research a bit better on the previous seasons.

My recollection is that they called the bottom 3 to JT first, and someone left behind in the Stew Room mentioned that “they always call the top ones first”. Which shows that some of the chefts DON’T WATCH THE SHOW THEY HAVE APPLIED TO APPEAR ON.

Of course, when they were called, I knew it was the bottom – they were the only 3 whose dishes got real negative feedback.